If I want to learn more about life under communism in the USSR, where should I go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Slightly later period (1985-1999) but I highly recommend watching The Trauma Zone documentary (used to be on YouTube and hopefully still there)
Also remember that this period in history is highly politicized. Eastern Europe is trying to break free from their socialist past and their museums will certainly be politically exaggerated, just as it is now en Vogue in say Russia to romanticize the past. You need to get a balanced view by getting acquainted with both sides.
It’s sad that Russia is perceived as too dangerous/bad form to travel RN, but the Leningrad siege museum in St Pete would be totally worth visiting.

Perceived!

I'll pass on becoming another Brittney Griner, thanks.

[Anonymous]

I know a Russian dad who grew up with the food lines. You could talk to him. Living history!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Transdnistria

I've been there. This is a good option. There's even Lenin statues in the squares in Tiraspol.

You'd go to Chisinau (Moldova) then drive from there. Note the Russians control border entry into Transnistria, but it was mostly just armed troops standing around bored while some bureaucrat stamps a piece of paper (can't stamp your passport since it's not a real country). Go with a tour organizer as they pay off the authorities to make things go smoothly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Belarus is the closest and is in many ways a relic, but it is not safe to go there. Maybe Serbia.

Why is it not safe? I mean sure don’t bring weed or loiter near classified factories or befriend KGB officers and ask them for your loans back. And these are Russia cases I am referring to as I don’t know any from Belarus. But otherwise nothing will happen to you in either country

Nonsense. You don’t have to be a spy for them to call you one. You could become a chip in their game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not persuading you to travel there I am simply saying that I don’t know a single case of a foreigner arrested for just being a foreigner. Heck, even in N Korea you have to actually steal a poster to be detained.

US embassy there closed last year because of the Russian war in Ukraine, says don’t go due to other risks. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/belarus-travel-advisory.html

[Anonymous]

Read a book, visit a museum. Not everything must be learned by travel. Save a tree.0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

Hmm, don't think so. I grew up there and still go there regularly. There's not too much in the way of discussion on communism. The Wall, sure. Not that much else.

Hm, interesting! Maybe it’s because they don’t politicize it much

It's because it was one country, then two briefly and the communist (socialist) one was then scooped back into the capitalist one and they eradicated most traces of it, both physically and in terms of standard of living.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP. or you could also try Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan if you wanted to see some Soviet influences and are willing to go outside Europe.

I'm fasinated by the Stans too. Kazakhstan sounds like a relatively free country easy to travel in. Uzbekistan I think is less free. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are.

Turkmenistan is the most authoritarian.

[Anonymous]

Check out Bald and Bankrupt youtube channel. He is into all this stuff, but not so much the museums, more the buildings and monuments.
I grew up In Soviet Union, but the most western part of it.
Every time somebody goes on and on how bad life was, I'm looking at them as if they are doing or saying it for attention. For my parents, grandparents, myself, my friends and most of my countrymen life was beautiful from 1945-1988.
There are a few museums left in the Baltics.The Baltics were also very eager to take everything down as fast as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

[Anonymous]

I visited a communist museum in Prague that was interesting.

[Anonymous]

There should be a significant Russian American population here in the DC area. Ask them for help. I imagine some may have actually experienced the communism era.

[Anonymous]

Republic of Georgia is nice - wonderful food and wine and scenery, and retains a good bit of architecture from Soviet times.

I would have suggested Kiev…but.

Central Asia is a real travel experience, with a mix of old Soviet architecture and government holdovers with newer growth all layered over ancient Silk Road mosques and such. I spent over two years in Turkmenistan - I’ll agree with PP above it’s not a place for tourists. I’d probably go to Bukhara and Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

I'd say a bunch of my family being killed by the government would probably make my day to day life pretty bad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

This does not sound like good day to day life!

[Anonymous]

It depends what you want to learn.

The USSR of the 40s and 50s was different from USSR of 60s and 70s, and those were different of those of the 1980s.

Living in the USSR was not the same for all. The life and privilege of a political party member or a director of storage facility (a very lucrative job at its time due to constant deficits and access to goods) in Moscow, was very different from that of a farmer some even 200-300km away, was different from the experience of a Crimean Tatar in their exile in Kazakhstan, different from life in Baltic states. Living in USSR was also very different from Eastern Europe where the standards were higher and overall, life was considered much better than in USSR.

You could visit the former USSR: Baltic states, Georgia, Central Asia, Moldova. Estonia has communism is prison museum about victims of communism. There is museum of communism in Prague. I am sure there are others.

Incidentally, have you been to the https://victimsofcommunism.org/ museum here in DC?